Choices
by Uozumi
Summary: Dean makes sacrifices for Sam that he keeps to himself. One such sacrifice would have stayed secret if he and Sam had not run into Dean's former GED tutor.


**Fandom** _Supernatural_  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s)** Dean, Sam, brief OMC appearance to get the ball rolling; no pairings intended  
**Genre** Drama/Family/Gen  
**Rating** PG  
**Word Count** 1625  
**Disclaimer** Supernatural c. Kripke, CW, WB  
**Summary** Dean makes sacrifices for Sam that he keeps to himself. One such sacrifice would have stayed secret if he and Sam had not run into Dean's former GED tutor.  
**Warning(s)** possible small spoilers up through the end of season five, mild language  
**Notes** I know slayed is not a word, however, it's used for the sake of real-sounding dialogue. The concept of this fic has been rolling around in my brain a while now. I just didn't know quite how to start it until recently. I'm not really sure where in canon this is supposed to take place, but it's definitely pre-season six.

_**Choices**_

They were in Paso Robles, California sitting on top of the hood of the impala with coffee. It was early in the morning. They rarely came to California, but a string of children disappearing sent them there to help. "Well, we slayed some worm beast thing," Dean muttered into his coffee cup, his nose wrinkling.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. It felt hollow. They managed to save two children but the countless others who had gone missing would never return.

A sedan pulled into the parking spot and parked two spots away. A man in his late thirties got out of the car and glanced at them. Both Winchesters glanced back. Then the man blinked. "Dean…Winchester?" He looked past Sam who sat closer and then his eyes lit up in recognition. "You're Dean Winchester, right?"

Dean lowered his coffee cup, trying to place the man and failing. "Uh…yeah."

"I lost some of my hair. I'm Jim from your GED tutoring." The man walked over so he could look at Dean directly. "It's been," he paused, "years. How are you?"

"I'm fine." Dean seemed to place Jim once he had context. "This is Sam. He's my brother."

Jim offered a small wave, which Sam returned with a nod. He looked back at Dean. "I'm here on a pregnancy craving run for my wife. She's dying for cashews." He ran his hand through his thinning hair. "But before I go in the store, I've got to know. Where did you choose?"

"'Choose?'" Dean asked. He had been up almost thirty-six hours now and still faintly smelled like worm guts.

"Yes, you said you got accepted to both Lincoln Tech and ATI," James said. "You never told me which one you went for."

Dean did not dare look at Sam. He knew the expression on his brother's face had to be one of the best shocked looks, but he did not want to see it. "Uh…well…" he tried to remember the details, "things got in the way. You know how it goes."

"That's too bad," Jim commented. "But, it's never too late." He phone began to go off and he grinned. "Well, that's my wife. It was great seeing you again. Take care!" With that, he picked up the phone and headed into the convenience store.

Dean slid off the impala. Three…two…one…

"Lincoln Tech?" Sam asked. "ATI?"

Dean had his back to Sam, but he could feel his eyes on him. He could picture the gaping mouth too. He tossed the empty coffee cup at a nearby trash receptacle but it bounced out. He got in the impala. "They're," Dean fumbled with his seatbelt as Sam got in the car, "technical institutes, Sammy."

"I know that," Sam got himself situated. "So you got your GED in what? 1999?"

"Yeah, close enough." Dean started the impala and headed on the down the road. He flipped on the radio. "We should go to that one exit where James Dean probably wrecked and see if his ghost tries to drive up the ramp the wrong way."

Sam turned the radio off and ignored Dean's hairy eyeball at the gesture. "Dean, we can't avoid this conversation. He said you got accepted," Sam put weight on that word, "to Lincoln Teach and," another weighted word, "ATI. I mean you accepted to not one place but two."

"Yeah. So? What's there to talk about?" Dean started towards that exit out onto the highway. It was the last ramp for miles if someone wanted to get into this part of the state. The first time Dean came out to the area, he ended up using it to get into Paso Robles when he missed the entrance ramp on accident. To Dean, it was obviously the place of the wreck because the temptation to go up it the wrong way to avoid driving hours out of the way was too great. He had never exited it at a time that one might run into James Dean's ghost if it was haunting the highway.

"A lot." Sam was staring at him, that creeper stare he reserved only for temperamentally demanding answers or really hot chicks. "I mean, Dean, you could have gone to college or something like it. You could be doing more than just eviscerating worm monsters when sane people are sleeping."

Dean headed down the exit ramp that was devoid of ghosts and headed out onto the desolate highway. "Can you stop talking about it like it's so damn surprising?" He shifted in his seat a little and kept his eyes on the road.

"Dean, you were still in high school at nineteen – Hell, we were two grades apart. You weren't exactly 'yay school' growing up." Sam stopped staring and looked out at the night.

"Dad started me late and started you early. That's all," Dean spoke in a slightly rushed voice like this was stuff Sam should already know and should know better than to drag out. He turned the radio back on. His tape deck had been on the fritz since they got to California and he had not gotten a chance to fix it yet.

Sam kept the radio on this time. He grew silent. Dean's shoulders remained tensed. Just because Sam was quiet did not mean it was over. It meant Sam was thinking and it was just going to get more awkward when he finally decided to open his mouth.

"So why didn't you?"

Dean did not answer.

"Both of those schools are supposed to be great. You've got a really high mechanical aptitude. Even if you wanted to keep up hunting at the time, there'd have to be an end point, right?"

Dean said nothing. He turned the radio up a little higher.

"Dean, Dad's 'shut up and let me drive' tactic is not going to work on me. I'm not seven and you're not Dad."

Dean eyed him. "What do you want me to say, Sammy? Getting accepted doesn't mean you go."

"Usually it does. Applications aren't free, Dean, and you can't use fraud cards on them." Sam looked at him again. "You would have had to save real money."

"You seem to be answering your own questions so we can stop talking about it, okay?" Dean sped up slightly since there were no signs of cops.

Sam got quiet again and Dean thought that maybe this would be the end of it, at least for the time being. Let Sam stew on it until they found something that distracted him enough the subject never came up in conversation ever again.

"It would have been at least two years before I left for Stanford." There was a pause and Sam's eyes wandered back to Dean. "You never told Dad, did you?"

Dean's grip tightened on the steering wheel. "There was nothing to tell." His jaw tightened. "Just drop it, okay?" It was only going to end in territory Dean did not want to touch.

Sam, of course, seemed to ignore all hints to stop talking. "Well, just…at least tell me why. I mean, come on, Dean, I would have thought you'd at least have bragged about it at some point."

Dean did not answer. Maybe he stayed quiet long enough Sam would realize he was talking to himself and just stop talking. Sam just kept staring and eventually Dean found his mouth moving. "I got the letters in a post box in Oklahoma about a year before you and Dad had the Stanford fight." It still was not a why, but maybe Sam might take the carrot and shut up.

"Isn't that the one you call your porn box?" Sam made a weird face.

"Yeah. That one."

Sam watched him. They had checked on that box periodically whenever their dad was not around. One time Dean had even taken a long-cut to check that box's contents. "That doesn't tell me why, Dean. Just tell me why and I'll shut up." Dean eyed him. "I promise."

There was a long silence. Dean's hands flexed on the steering wheel. He kept his eyes on the road. He needed the right words. He knew what Sam had to be thinking. "It wasn't right."

"You couldn't have known the thought of higher education would make Dad hit the roof. I mean even I didn't think he'd get that angry." Sam shook his head.

"No, I mean," Dean glanced at Sam, "bailing just wasn't the right thing to do." He looked back at the road. "Now we're dropping it."

Sam sighed. He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked out the passenger window. Dean relaxed slightly when Sam seemed to be cooperating and turned the radio down so they would not have to listen to commercials. There had been a time when he seriously considered going to one of the two institutes. At the time, he thought that it would possibly even enhance hunting. Then Sam came down with mono and their dad went missing, then there was a hunting party who were keen on getting revenge on Sam for things at the time seemed confusing and unclear. However, when Sam went to a junior prom and returned not only possessed, but also splattered with demon blood, Dean knew he could not leave. He had taken both acceptance envelopes containing their letters and information and burnt them when no one else was around. Dean then proceeded to force himself to forget that the achievements even existed and for the most part, he succeeded.

As the sun began to break over the eastern horizon, Dean let the car slow in case cops were starting to crop up and tried to focus on the lyrics to the Black Sabbath song playing.

**The End**


End file.
